The Daughter-In Law by Diana Diamond

Again, someone ridiculously wealthy is in the picture as the main characters and the underdog less financially successful person is victimized by the wealthy person's brutality and selfishness.  This story theme will not change my desire to become ridiculously wealthy, although I am sure I never will, I would still not pass up the opportunity if it arrived and I could live within my morals.  This novel was different enough from the other novels by this author to merit reading.  It was still interesting.  I did not enjoy the brutality of the characters, even the heroine seemed to lack virtue to a large degree.  I suppose the characters could be categorized as generally leaning to more good than bad or generally leaning to more bad than good depending on the character.  Most of the characters were no just all bad or good, except Jimmy Farr.  I think he was portrayed as only bad.  I felt so glad he got his in the end.  I wish real life were like that! I would give this book a 6/10.

The Babysitter by Diana Diamond

This was a pretty good book.  It was the best out of the series I've read by Diana Diamond so far.  I don't know how to write about it without giving away the story, but I can say that it was interesting and entertaining.  The only part that I didn't like was the violence, as with all her books.  This book was quite well thought-out in my opinion and I was impressed with the author's skills. Again, someone ridiculously wealthy was in the picture.  There were no tedious parts for me in the book, probably because courts were not involved, or the judicial system.  Someone Spanish was in the story, so that made it interesting, because most of the characters seem to be Caucasian; I guess I enjoyed other points of view and some semblance of reality, but again, it's a fantasy novel and that is part of what I enjoy.  I thought having a babysitter live in your home and watch your children so closely while you attend to other things interested me the most.  The dynamics of that situation seem like something I would not be comfortable living with, yet at the same time want for myself.  I give this book an 8/10.

The Stepmother by Diana Diamond

I thought that this book was OK.  I'm not sure if I would have read it knowing there was a court case in the book as I find those extremely tedious and I don't want to spend my leisure time stressing about it or even thinking about it.  This was, again, an extremely unlikely situation.  But those situations are appropriate in a novel I guess.  It's fiction, so why not enjoy it.  I wish the characters were a little more involved.  I would have liked to have been more attached to them and cared about them.  The book was entertaining though.  I read The First Wife and I found it very similar to The Stepmother in the various fantastic attempts on the heroin's life. Like the first book though, it was entertaining enough to keep reading. It wasn't as good as The First Wife though because, probably, of my dislike of court cases in novels.  That's so boring. I wish the characters were developed more and were more engaging. Instead of constantly relying on physical attempts of death on the person, I would like to see more moral angst. "Angst, often confused with anxiety, is a transcendent emotion in that it combines the unbearable anguish of life with the hopes of overcoming this seemingly impossible situation. Without the important element of hope, then the emotion is anxiety, not angst. Angst denotes the constant struggle one has with the burdens of life that weighs on the dispossessed and not knowing when the salvation will appear." Urban Dictionary online. (I know I'm not using proper anything in my blog, but no one reads it anyway!)
I would give this book a 7/10.

The First Wife by Diana Diamond

This was a surprisingly good book.  It could have been better in that it was somewhat predictable and tacky in the story line.  The pursued woman who just happens to marry a ridiculously good-looking, charming and unbelievably wealthy man while she has no real flaws as most humans.  Their sex life is perfect and they almost instantly fall in love and get married in (didn't check the timeline) a couple of months if that.  The couple also ends up perfectly happy in the end.  I suppose there were the unruly teenage step-children, but that didn't seem to affect the relationship as it would in real life.

The good part, and the part that I find surprising, is that the book held my attention. It was interesting in a lot of areas (to me anyway). I suppose it was the suspense (another thing though, that was unrealistic). It was interesting that Jane had an ex-husband who still tried to hang out at her house and it was nice to fantasize that prince charming would come along and rescue Jane at any time.  Jane was also portrayed as intelligent, independent, brave and resourceful. The unrealistic suspense situation involved multiple attempts on Jane's life in which any normal human being would have contacted the police and the surrounding human beings would have completely believed Jane when she tried to tell them her life was in danger.  In the book, no one believed her.  Her husband didn't believe her when Jane told him about a nurse, who wasn't really a nurse, tried to kill her in the hospital room.  She was also locked in a sauna in a temperature over 200 degrees.  Any person would have been alarmed by that, but no one in the novel seemed to be.

I did enjoy the book nevertheless.  I plan on reading all her other novels.  Fantasy is nice sometimes. I would give this book a 7/10

The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst

This book was seemingly normal at first - the whole first half.  Then this really upsetting bizarre and weird occurrence took place which almost made me not like the book at all.  This man was very sad that his wife died and there are flashbacks throughout the book explaining his relationship with his wife as it had been.  The man drops out of work as a university professor on a sabbatical to teach his dog to speak as he thinks this will help him understand how his wife died.  He suspects suicide.  The bereaved  man, in his desperation, writes to a horrid dog abuser in jail to consult him concerning his work operating on dogs and disfiguring them in horrible ways in order to make them speak.  The jailed man gives one of his underground dog-abusing cohorts the bereaved man's address and the bereaved man eventually becomes involved in this club but is horror-stricken by their actions and he must leave.  When he returns home to find his dog missing, he knows it is the crazy animal abusers which did it.  The dog is eventually found with her essential vocal organs removed, but alive.  The man thinks he found out how his wife died in the end.  The poor dog scenario was too much for me to take though.  I don't think I'll read another book... too gross.  Most of the book was totally OK though.  5/10

One Day by David Nicholls

I didn't want to like this book because the morals were quite low concerning the main character Dexter.  Emily and Dexter are the main characters of the book.  The description David Nicholls uses in the novel are interesting.  I enjoyed reading it, but the characters' actions were disgusting. 

I found myself really wanting to know what was going to happen to Dex and Em and their relationship.  I didn't realize I was so involved in their characters until I got to the ending and the surprising twist of fate made me emotionally upset.  I am now the same age the characters were in the book at the ending of the book (mid-40s) so in that way I related to the book as well. 

I don't know England very well and I feel I got to know it somewhat through the novel.

The author was a good storyteller.  I would give this book a 6 1/2/10.

Home Another Way by Christa Parrish

I found Home Another Way by Christa Parrish more entertaining than most books.  It seemed like a Christian novel, but the ending wasn't as tidy and predictable as I would have thought a Christian novel to be.  The main character was also more risky than I would have thought a Christian writer would have portrayed.  I suppose it is more realistic though.  The way Sarah Graham lives her life and questions situations is, perhaps, how a lot of people really would go about doing things when invstigating their own belief in God.  I don't know how she got away with her behavior at times and why everyone was so kind to her, but perhaps I can see it, especially if the town loved her father even though he is said to have murdered his wife, Sarah's mother.

The description in the novel was unusual to me.  I'm too tired right now to look them up.

And sentences seemed to need periods such as the ending part of the following sentence towards the beginning of chapter 22 which states, "...keeping my passenger-side tires in the snow, for traction, I hoped."  There seems to be a period in need after the word "traction."  Also the sentence shortly after the previous one which states, "I jammed my foot down, spun to the right, jerked the steering wheel to the left." strikes me as a comma splice.  I don't know if it is the author's intention for this to happen and I don't get it, or if grammatical errors are throughout the novel.  It seems the latter.

However, I enjoyed it and the unusual descriptions that made me in some way uncomfortable, like they were forced, or too thought out and strategically placed instead of a natural flow of the novel, did help and worked in aiding me to understand the picture a bit better of what it was like there in the small town of Jonah.  I would give this novel a 7/10.